No.1: Superstorm Sandy

In this Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012 photo, a rainbow appears as a Santa-dressed Michael Sciaraffo leaves the home of Ella Sampol, 14 months, after bringing her a toy in the Belle Harbor neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York. Using Facebook, Sciaraffo started a charitable enterprise to collect and personally deliver toys to children affected by Superstorm Sandy, dressed as Santa Claus. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

TRENTON —Superstorm Sandy was a howling hurricane that combined with a nor’easter and a full moon to create mammoth storm surges that destroyed homes, businesses and bridges from Cape May to Staten Island and far Long Island.

A thousand miles across, Sandy took more than 110 lives between the Caribbean and Canada. Its winds of 75 mph uprooted big old oaks and sycamores from the shore, across New Jersey and deep into Pennsylvania. It cancelled Halloween, which had been put off by snow the year before.

Sandy gathered strength over the Atlantic and barreled into Jersey on Oct. 29 as a “super storm” of high winds and torrential rains that “produced unprecedented severe weather conditions, including enormous storm surges and devastating flooding,” in the words of Gov. Chris Christie.

It took down boardwalks from Seaside to Wildwood and twisted a steel roller coaster into a surreal version of itself. Damage was measured in the billions of dollars, as well as the psychological trauma of losing houses and whole communities to flooding, high winds and even fire.

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More than 900,000 homes and businesses lost power in Jersey alone. Two weeks after the crisis, the federal emergency agency, FEMA, was saying 369,000 people in Jersey, New York and Connecticut had applied for assistance and that $455 million had been paid out for everything from emergency housing to major repairs.

President Obama came to the region to hug and comfort the afflicted and explain sometimes one-on-one what people needed to do to get federal assistance. Someone asked the political rivals what they were doing working together in the middle of a presidential race.

Christie shot back that politics was the least of his concerns and praised the efforts of Obama even as he said he’d still vote for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney

Republican Christie, in turn, won praise from none other than the Democratic mayor of Ewing, Bert Steinmann, who said “the governor is doing a fantastic job in managing the storm crisis for the state of New Jersey.”

Other federal agencies that had to get involved were the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Sandy left untold tons of debris spread across Jersey. Health and environmental agencies cautioned those doing cleanup work to avoid exposure to sewage, asbestos, lead, silica, cement dust and other toxic chemicals. They also cautioned that airborne mold could cause respiratory problems and that many people were unknowingly using improper safety attire.

Christie said federal money has been approved to reimburse local governments that remove storm debris from private property. All 21 counties were told to apply for FEMA to reimburse 75 percent of the cost of municipal debris removal conducted on private property.

Participating county or municipal governments will have to cover the remaining 25 percent of the cost. Christie called the work an important step in helping New Jersey residents psychologically recover from Superstorm Sandy by seeing the rubble carted off in trash trucks.

Cleared away from curbside all over coastal Jersey were heaps of mattresses, couches, washers, dryers, computers and all manner of appliances, furniture and clothes. With some people losing everything, FEMA set up recovery center with food and clothing and even cash for victims.

Hamiltonians Tera Juerling and Dina Sommerer, seeing the winds of Sandy were dying down, jumped into action. With many family and friends and volunteers lending a helping hand they loaded a truck full of donations and headed for LBI and South Amboy to help hurting families.

The Hamilton friends didn’t stop there. They then turned their attentions to making Christmas brighter for the children victimized by the hurricane.

It all started with a post on Facebook asking for donations of food, clothing and anything else that could help those in need. The support flooded in. Their homes were soon filled with the donated items. A borrowed warehouse space followed.

Dozens of trips were made to the shore areas hit hardest by the storm in box trucks -- also donated -- packed to capacity with the necessities that weeks earlier might have been taken for granted.

While making those trips to drop off supplies, Juerling said, a new plan was hatched after meeting some of the families receiving the donations and being met with thanks, hugs and tears.

“Going down to the shore and seeing all these families and seeing these little kids when we were dropping off these donations was heartbreaking,” Juerling said. “I’m a single mom. I have three kids of my own. Some of the kids were my children’s age. It was just devastating.”